Somewhere along the way, my three worlds—personal, professional and organizational—became saturated with activity. More responsibility, more worthwhile tasks and more can’t-miss family moments mean that decisions about what to do and when to do it are more important than ever.

A productive life doesn’t happen by accident. You don’t stumble upon great personal choices, plans, priorities and goals. One of the most important lessons about personal productivity is that you have to spend intentional time planning your daily and weekly schedule.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower said it this way:

I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.

That statement is at the heart of the Eisenhower Matrix, a method for making consistently good decisions about time and your agenda.

I set aside my first hour on Monday morning to plan and prioritize the coming week. It’s my planned weekly time to make decisions about important, unimportant, urgent and not urgent tasks.

Here’s how it works. In what is now called the Eisenhower Decision Principle, tasks are evaluated and sorted using important-unimportant and urgent-not urgent criteria. Those tasks are then placed in one of four quadrants in the Eisenhower Box or Matrix.

You may already do this intuitively, but consider placing daily and weekly tasks in the proper perspective. Sort important-unimportant and urgent-not urgent tasks to make good decisions about your schedule:

Know what to DO now. What IMPORTANT/URGENT things should be done immediately and personally? This includes time-sensitive items that have a deadline or problems and crises needing immediate attention. These are things that require your personal attention or presence and can’t be done by anyone else.

Know what to SCHEDULE later. What IMPORTANT/NOT URGENT things should be scheduled? This includes important tasks that may not have a target date or time limit. But since these things are still very important, you need to intentionally plug them in to your personal schedule. You might need to schedule things like strategic planning, relationships, goal setting or other significant tasks you can never seem to make time for.

Know what to DELEGATE to someone else. What UNIMPORTANT/URGENT things should be delegated? This includes routine items that can be done by someone else. These things don’t require your presence and that makes them a prime candidate for delegation. Ask yourself the question: Who can do it for me? You might need to delegate tasks like routine administration, scheduling, meetings and activities. If it doesn’t require your personal touch, then delegate it.

Know what to DELETE. What UNIMPORTANT/NOT URGENT things should be dropped? This includes everything we can live without in our personal, professional and organizational worlds. These are things that we can drop or eliminate from our routine to make room for more productive tasks. Examples include time wasters, low priority items, entertainment or anything else we can do without.

So what’s the Big Idea?

One of the most important lessons about personal productivity is that you have to spend intentional time planning your daily and weekly schedule. Know what to do now, what to schedule later, what to delegate to someone else and what to delete. Make better decisions with the Eisenhower Matrix.

Medium-term goals are a natural extension of weekly goals, details and to-do lists. They are the incremental checkpoints that have to be reached on the way to annual goals and objectives.

Let’s define the duration of goals this way:

Short-Term – 30 days or less

Medium-Term – 2 to 11 months

Long-Term – 12 months or more

We often associate goal-setting with annual goals—the type of goals typically set as a part of performance review processes. But while annual goals are important, they aren’t very effective as standalone objectives. In fact, recent evidence confirms that goal-setting should happen more frequently than once a year:

The traditional once-a-year setting of employee goals and performance review is totally out of date,” says Kris Duggan [co-founder of Silicon Valley startup firm BetterWorks]. “To really improve performance, goals need to be set more frequently, be more transparent to the rest of the company, and progress towards them measured more often.

Consider 3 ways that medium-term goals help you stay on target:

Medium-term goals bridge short-term and long-term goals. While short-term goals form your daily and weekly nuts-and-bolts task list, you need bridge goals to steer you toward your long-term objectives. Medium-term goals fit the bill, providing a progress report at set times throughout the year.

Medium-term goals are a natural time to make adjustments. If there’s a problem with your “big picture” plan, you’re more likely to discover it as you set and evaluate medium-term goals. Intermediate goals help you adapt to changing conditions and, if necessary, adjust the long-term objective.

Medium-term goals focus on quarterly results. A study of big companies by consulting firm Deloitte found that: “Those which set quarterly goals are nearly four times more likely to be in the top quartile of performers.” It pays to set incremental checkpoints as you strive toward annual goals and objectives.

Quarterly and semi-annual goals can be applied in your personal, professional and organizational worlds. Whatever the area of your life, apply medium-term goals to stay on target:

Personally – Family, self-improvement and life development goals

Professionally – Career, work and leadership development goals

Organizationally – Business or ministry vision, values and OGSM-driven goals

So what’s the Big Idea?

It pays to set medium-term goals, especially quarterly and semi-annual ones. They bridge short-term and long-term goals and provide incremental checkpoints to make adjustments as you strive toward annual goals and objectives.

“Oh Great, (just) Shoot Me!” Those OGSM words have been heard more than once when a new strategy planning process is about to begin. Born in the fear and anxiety we feel about increased accountability and evaluation, that’s a natural response.

Start with the strategy planning pre-requisite—vision and values. Vision answers the question: WHY does the organization exist? A model vision statement is the one adopted by Willow Creek Community Church:

Values are an outgrowth of ministry vision. They are a set of PRIORITIES that govern everything that happens in a ministry. Everything that you do—every event, program or initiative—will somehow address these priorities.

For example, a church might have values that clarify its priorities like this:

With vision and a set of values in your pocket, strategy planning can begin. The OGSM acronym spells out a straightforward process:

Objectives – WHAT will you do to accomplish each value? Typically, you will develop 2-3 objectives for each organizational value. Use WORDS for your objectives.

Goals – What is your numerical goal? Develop a goal for each strategy, plan and objective. Set goals either early or late in the process. Set incremental benchmarks (short and medium-term goals) to achieve throughout the year. It may be useful to establish goals as a FINAL step in the process. Use NUMBERS for your goals.

Strategies – HOW will you accomplish each objective? WHAT will you do? Develop several strategies and plans for each objective. Use WORDS for your strategies.

Measures – What does success look like for each strategy? How do you MEASURE success numerically for each strategy and plan? Brainstorm several ways to measure success for each strategy and plan. Use NUMBERS for your measures.

Objectives usually have a “we will” structure. In order to accomplish organizational vision and values, your objective is what you will do to accomplish those priorities. For example, ministry values might lead to objectives like:

Prayer – We will seek the face of God and pray for spiritual renewal as the first step in total commitment to Jesus Christ.

Worship – We will give our best offering to God with a worship blend that celebrates the old and the new.

Evangelism – We will build relationships to introduce friends and neighbors to Jesus Christ.

Discipleship – We will reach, teach and care for people through Bible Fellowship and community groups.

NextGen – We will equip parents to raise godly kids and be spiritual leaders at home.

Strategies are the action plan for each objective. They answer the essential HOW and WHAT questions with strategic plans, tactics and details. Quantitative MEASURES help you evaluate a plan’s success or failure. Finally, GOALS are the objective stated numerically.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Establish an organizational vision and a set of values. Then write your strategic plans in four steps: Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Measures. It’s the way you achieve more for the Kingdom personally and keep the organization aligned with the Great Commission.

Measuring what you do is the only way you know you’re accomplishing something important. It’s how you clarify the win and know what success looks like in every area of your life.

Consider how often you start a task or set a goal without defining a strategic way to measure the preferred outcome. Sometimes it’s a simple oversight. At other times, we don’t measure because we fear the result won’t be what we expect it to be.

It’s also true that we can have shifting definitions of success. When something doesn’t go as planned, we may be tempted to redefine the win and rationalize an unexpected (and non-vision-driven) outcome.

The right measures clarify the win in your personal, professional and organizational worlds. They also combat vision drift and misalignment in 2 strategic ways:

They focus on outputs vs. inputs. Inputs tell you what ingredients go in to something. Outputs tell you what comes out on the other side. Move beyond simple input measures to the more significant outcomes you’re aiming for.

They measure quantitative vs. qualitative success. Qualitative measures are subjective and experiential. Quantitative measures, or metrics, are objective and numerical. In most cases, quantitative measures are the best way to measure outcomes without bias.

Remember that measures aren’t goals. Measures are an objective way to express the size, quantity or degree of something. Goals are a numerical objective and desired result for the measures you set. Both are important, but goals won’t mean much if you don’t measure the right things.

Select the right measures. Align measures with organizational vision and values. Think beyond inputs to outputs.

Record the results. Devote time to evaluating and measuring your plans. If you complete a task or goal, plan some time to compare it against the strategic measures you set.

Track data trends. Trends show where you are in relation to your past and can be a predictor of future growth (or decline). Read measures intelligently and watch for important trends indicating health, effectiveness and relevance.

Make measures-driven adjustments. Honest measures indicate one of two things. Either you’ve accomplished your goal or you haven’t. Either you’re moving in an upward trend or you’re not. Make adjustments based on measured results.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Clarify the win. Measuring what you do is the only way you know you’re accomplishing something important.

Managing ministry money is one of the first places where vision drift creeps into a church. It happens in the absence of bold vision and a coherent ministry strategy. It also happens with short-sighted or visionless leadership.

Making financial decisions is the golden moment when a church shows its true priorities. A church can say it has strategic priorities, but how it budgets and spends money is a far better indication of what it values than anything it might say.

Why the disconnect? Why do we so often say one thing but do something completely different with ministry money?

Consider the answer in these 6 ministry budget traps:

Silos vs. Vision – Before starting a new budget process, pull staff or volunteer leadership teams together to review vision as well as key strategic areas and initiatives. Work to reduce and eliminate ministry silos with a compelling ministry vision.

Programs vs. Purpose – Budgets are a good time to evaluate ministry programs and purpose. Consider the things you should stop, start and continue doing. Does a ministry program need adjustment? Should an existing program (and budget) be ended in favor of something else?

Events vs. Strategy – Ask leaders who supervise budget lines to think strategically. Require that budget requests be linked to church vision and clearly-defined strategies and action plans. Work with your team to prevent last year’s calendar from automatically determining future plans.

Personalities vs. Priorities – The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Some church budgets reflect this, as more money gets allocated to louder voices and departments. Well-reasoned—but quiet and low key—ministry priorities get pushed aside in these situations. Commit to avoid this trap with a coherent, priority-driven budget process.

Status Quo vs. Change – Create a budget process that encourages a vision-aligned, strategy-driven openness to change. The best stewardship of the church’s financial resources is a Q&A attitude about the status quo.

So what’s the Big Idea?

Allocating money strategically is the best way to manage limited financial resources. Make your budget choices completely dependent on what you are called to do (vision and values), who you are called to reach (outreach focus) and how God has called you to reach them (goals, strategies and action plans).